One of the central themes in Antjie Krog's seventh volume of poetry, <I>Lady Anne&lt;/I&gt; (1989),
is the portrayal of the body. Several poems focus on the female body, the body as a
writing instrument (in support of Cixous's famous dictum), the interaction between the
male and female body, the body as textualised object and the body of the Other.
Interestingly enough, Krog does not opt for the traditional maternal metaphor for the
writing process but employs obvious phallic metaphors to convey her poetic inclinations.
Her preoccupation with the body and bodily metaphors is an intertextual
response to that of Breyten Breytenbach. In <I>Lady Anne&lt;/I&gt; the focus is in particular on the
body of the Other(s) encountered at the Cape by the historical subject, Lady Anne
Barnard. Finally, it is shown how the poem "jy word onthou vanweë ..." is a culmination
for all the perspectives on the body in the text as a whole.